Phobia
by Fury Seven Kerrigan
Summary: Everyone has a dark, subconscious phobia. For the Enterprise crew, it takes an anomaly for them to discover their inner demons...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer... we all know it.

**Phobia**

**14:00 hours**

"Captain, it's coming closer!" Malcolm warned.

"On screen," Archer said immediately. "Hoshi- can you get any signal from it?"

Hoshi sat at her station pressing the earpiece closer to make sure. "No Captain, not a thing." She shook her head regretfully.

The Bridge viewscreen switched from the view of a blue sun with an enormous amount of gravitic pull ahead of them to the object coming towards them from the port side- a large bubbly gelatinous blob, for lack of a better word, with jellyfish-like blobby tendrils and looking otherwise distinctly like an amoeba. It was a greyish colour, and translucent- they Bridge crew could still just make out the brightest stars through the 'blob', and it was coming towards them without hesitation, and without any regard for the _Enterprise_, nor the people inside it seemed.

"It seems to be some kind of vast single-celled organism," T'Pol warned, her voice slightly louder than normal to be heard over the tactical alert.

"Captain!" Malcolm warned, shouting, "it's about to hit!"

Jon reached for the comm panel on his chair arm, raising the ship-wide alarm- "All hands, brace for impact!"

It wasn't quite the impact they were expecting. The 'blob' didn't hit them like a weapon, it instead enveloped them, the _Enterprise_ bucking once to starboard, and then slowly was brought back down to normal level, as if it was sinking comfortably into the jelly that was this entity.

For a second, the only sound to be heard was the alarm until messages started to be relayed to the Bridge crew's terminals from all over the ship.

"No casualties, no fatalities Captain," Malcolm said, looking at Jon as he did.

"Good," Jon's shoulders relaxed, and he sat back in his chair, momentarily thankful for that report. "Keep Tactical Alert going, but silence the alarm." Then he stood up and went to Hoshi. "Did we get anything from it at all? Anything?"

She shook her head. "No, nothing at all Captain."

"Captain," T'Pol said, anticipating his question as he turned to her, "as I said, this seems to be a single-celled organism. It appears to come from the gravity well of the sun that we have been studying, although I do not know how it itself seems to defy that same gravity. It is quite possible that it has no concept of communication, especially if this is early in the stages of its species evolution."

"Great," Jon said, exasperated, "I guess that means shooting it off us is out of the question. What do you suggest?" he said to T'Pol.

"The basic instinct of any species is to survive," she said. "Logically speaking, we should assume that it is requiring something from us, and won't automatically allow us to leave before it gets what it needs."

Jon frowned, looking down as he tapped his right hand on the railing in front of T'Pol's station, thinking. "Well," he said, looking up at her, expression clearing marginally, "scan this creature. Work with Phlox, and see if the two of you can't find what this thing is made from and what proteins and stuff it needs- maybe we can find something on board to feed it that will make it leave us alone."

T'Pol stood, holding a PADD and went to the turbolift. "Understood Captain."

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**15:30 hours**

After confirming with all of his senior staff that apart from having an amoeba attached to it, the _Enterprise_ and everyone on board was fine, Jon went to Sickbay to see how Phlox and T'Pol were getting on with their medical scans of the creature.

He walked through the Sickbay doors, and found the two of them to the left bank of medical screens, Phlox looking up at the screens, and T'Pol inputting data into her PADD. They both stopped and looked towards Archer as he walked in.

"We're at all-stop now until we've moved this thing off us- I don't want to risk damaging either it or our engines."

Phlox smiled, reassuring Jon that there was no immediate or obvious threat. "Ah, Captain. This is a marvellous opportunity for a study of an early lifeform! Slightly tempered by it being attached to us, but I don't believe it means us any harm. On the contrary, what we can learn from it will greatly enhance our knowledge!" He looked quite gleeful at the thought.

T'Pol on the other hand, looked her usual calm self, which at this point, was reassuring Jon more than Phlox's glee was.

"I believe that this organism is able to defy the sun's gravity by the fact that it lives there," she told Jon. "The elements which bond to create it are the same that exist on the surface of this sun. The apparent blue colour that the sun has appears to be in fact be several million of these organisms clustered on the surface."

Jon nodded, "Kinda like a giant petri dish then?" he asked.

T'Pol inclined her head in affirmation. "That would be a suitable analogy."

"And this one attached to us?" Jon asked.

"Who knows," Phlox piped up, "it is possibly a rogue organism, or maybe it was on the outside of the surface cluster around the sun and found us to be another, hopefully temporary, form of heat. But never fear Captain, we will study further and find some answers for you!"

"I'm glad to hear it," Jon said before leaving them to carry on working.

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	2. Claustrophobia

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**Claustrophobia**

**22:00 hours**

That evening, Hoshi walked into Sickbay to see Phlox. She looked around, not seeing him instantly, but spied him sitting at his desk staring at the readouts he and the Sub-Commander had gathered throughout the day.

She went over to him, to ask her query, but he spied her first before she spoke.

"Ensign!" he said, delighted as ever to have visitors, it seemed to her. "What can I do for you?"

She tried to smile at him, although she wasn't feeling well enough to make it her normal smile, and he saw instantly that she wasn't herself. His overly-friendly expression changed to one of concerned professionalism as he offered her a seat next to his. "What seems to be the matter?"

She took the seat gladly. "I'm really not feeling well- my- my... head... it feels so... well, like it's a pressure cooker, and hot..." she placed her right hand over her forehead as she spoke. "I'm sorry Doctor, I'm not making much sense, I'm just so hot, and- and it feels like my head's about to explode... like everything is closing in on me too."

Phlox frowned, all joviality gone. He stood up, offering a helping hand to Hoshi to help her to stand too, which she took, and he led her to one of the beds. As she lay down, he brought out a scanner and took her readings. His frown deepened into the closest thing to a scowl that she had ever seen him make, but then she was distracted again by the pressure in her head, and she brought up both hands to cradle her temples, groaning in pain. Her left hand went down to the collar of her off-duty clothes, trying to make room between her neck and the previously-comfy old T-shirt she wore. "Everything feels like it's closing in on me Doctor, choking me," she whispered. She opened her eyes to see that Phlox had moved to the EM chamber, getting the exam table slid out and ready. "Doctor?" she asked, louder so he could hear her. "What's that for?"

He came back over to her bed, and helped her to sit up. He looked her straight in the eye. "Ensign, I can find absolutely nothing wrong with you, but you are never one to come to Sickbay complaining unless you need to, so if you say that you're suffering, I'm inclined to believe you over the scanner, especially as we have a creature attached to _Enterprise_, with no idea as to what effect it might have on us. As such, I want to scan you in the EM chamber as it is more comprehensive than my hand-held scanner." He helped her off the bed and on to the exam table where she lay back.

Hoshi hated the EM chamber. She had been in it before, as had everyone on the ship- it was a part of the medical check-up everyone had when they first boarded _Enterprise_ for the Doctor's records. The only problem was that Hoshi had claustrophobia, which she didn't admit readily, but several crewmembers did know- Doctor Phlox obviously, and Jon, as well as Liz Cutler and Trip, and she'd even told Travis, despite knowing his love of gossip and pranks, but she considered him to be a good friend.

She lay back, the heat getting to her, making her clothes stick. As the table slid into the chamber, she began picking at her clothes, trying to get them away from her skin, letting her breathe. She looked down towards her feet as the chamber closed. She hated this part, and she scrunched her eyes closed.

"Don't worry Ensign, this won't take more than a minute," Phlox said into the speaker on the wall so she could hear him. He looked at the scans as the computer showed the information on the viewscreen above the chamber. He couldn't see a thing wrong with her. He took a closer look at her brain, where he could see that there were increased levels of adrenaline- he could tell that she was beginning to panic, but there really was nothing else out of the ordinary as far as he could see.

Hoshi heard Phlox over the speaker telling her not to worry, but that was much easier said than done. She tried the trick she had used last time she was in the chamber and counted to a minute to try and concentrate on the counting, rather than on the fact that she was stuck in what felt like a lit-up coffin. She got to a minute, but hadn't heard from Phlox again, so she counted to two minutes.

She opened her eyes and called out. "Doctor? Are you there?"

Silence.

"Doctor Phlox??!" She reached out to the speaker, beginning to panic. "Doctor!! Get me out of here!!"

She slid down towards the entrance and kicked out as she didn't have enough space to turn to knock or try and pry the doors open. Still no answer, so she kicked again, harder and harder. She was sure that she should at least be getting a reprimand from Phlox telling her not to damage the machine as they would have to go back to Earth to get a new one, but not even the sound of a welcome reprimand was coming. Her hands lashed out, trying to make herself heard from outside the chamber, screaming for someone to let her out, but no one came to open the door.

She was trapped.

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	3. Autophobia

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**Autophobia**

**22:00 hours**

Phlox couldn't understand what was wrong with the machines at that moment. There was obviously something wrong with Ensign Sato, but he couldn't find anything. He indulged himself with a frustrated sigh before going to his desk to prepare a hypospray to take a blood sample.

Having done that, he returned to the EM chamber to release Hoshi from it. He took one last look at the readings as he did and stopped, surprised by what he suddenly saw.

There was no one in the chamber. He looked around Sickbay.

"Ensign?" he called out. No answer.

He looked back at the chamber, absolutely sure that he would have noticed if the bed had come out, but to be sure, he opened it up. The bed rolled out- empty.

Phlox was extremely confused. It wasn't a noisy machine, but he had been only a couple of feet away while he had prepared a hypospray, and he would have heard the faint hissing noise of the chamber opening and the bed rolling out if it had, and he would at least from the corner of his eye have seen if anyone else had been in the room.

"Ensign?!" he called out again, but with the same response- nothing. He rushed around Sickbay, behind all of the cupboards, his office, and even behind all of the privacy curtains, but Ensign Sato wasn't there.

He turned to the nearest comm unit. "Phlox to Ensign Sato." The comm was quiet. "Phlox to the Bridge." Still silence was the only thing that met him.

He could feel his own heart rate beating faster as he left Sickbay to go for a search himself. _Enterprise_ was suddenly very quiet- he had the distinct impression that he was back in the trans-dimensional disturbance in the Delphic Expanse where he had had to disable the neocortexes of the crew and he had been quite alone. There was a human phrase that was good right now, he thought.... you could hear a pin drop, it was that quiet.

He went to Ensign Sato's quarters first, buzzing the door comm first, and then knocking several times when he heard no answer. He gave up, and left for the Mess Hall next.

When he walked through the Mess Hall door, he stopped dead in his tracks- there wasn't a soul. He frowned. There was _always_ someone here, even if it was only Chef chopping away in the kitchen. Phlox strode towards the kitchen double doors and let himself inside without knocking. Normally, someone entering his domain unannounced would have incurred the wrath of Chef, which is why Phlox did it, but there wasn't a sound.

He wandered around the kitchen, noting that there was a pot of stew for the next day slow cooking away on the hob. He turned, and saw a ladle swinging from a hook, but there was no one there, not even Crewman Brown, Chef's long-suffering assistant, but who adored Chef and rarely left his presence except to serve the Captain his meals.

He reached out to stop the ladle from swinging, and left the kitchen, casting one more look around. Definitely not another soul here.

Back in the Mess Hall, he was astonished then when he saw Commander Tucker sitting in the corner, with his back to him.

"Commander Tucker!" Phlox joyfully exclaimed as he raced over to his table. He had a hand on the back of the Commander's chair when a noise behind him caused him to spin around. No one there. Phlox gave a small shudder and turned back to the Commander.

The chair was empty.

Phlox backed up a couple of steps, looking all around him as he did. There was no one else in the room, and this time he knew positively that no one had come or gone from the Mess Hall.

He left the room, shuddering again. He couldn't feel a single presence near him, the air was quite still, and he had no idea what was going on. He walked quickly to the turbolift to go to the Bridge. Surely there would be someone there. He kept his head down as he walked, not wanting to hallucinate again as he had the last time he'd been alone on the _Enterprise_, even though deep down he knew that the cause of that had been the trans-dimensional disturbance, his fear now was interrupting his rational thought.

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	4. Aquaphobia

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**Aquaphobia**

**22:00 hours**

Malcolm was lying on his back finishing off some work in the Jefferies tubes, trying to make the wiring to the torpedo launchers just that micron more efficient, and it was a calming way to end the day. He did not like the fact that there was an alien creature attached to their hull, but he also appreciated the fact that for once, they couldn't just shoot it off, no matter how tempting the prospect was.

Which was why he was now occupying himself with little tasks to calm his mind before he went to bed.

He finished the section he was working on, deep inside the bowels of the _Enterprise_, and turned over, making sure his tool belt was still attached securely around him before he crawled down the end of the tubing section and turned left at the T-section to leave the tubes for the Armoury to pack up for the day. He stopped very suddenly when he saw, not five metres away, water creeping towards him, silent as the grave.

"What the-" he began. He reached for the torch on his tool belt, as the dim lighting in the tubes made it hard to see things clearly. Without moving his eyes away from the passageway in front of him, he flicked on the torch and shone it towards the mass coming so slowly, still creeping, towards him. It was definitely water, albeit a black and very out of place body of water. He scowled at it, replacing the torch on his belt, and then scowled deeper still when he realised he had no communicator on him. He went back on himself, and took the other exit of the T-section to get out, although this would take him to the corridor outside the Transporter, rather than to the Armoury, but anything was frankly better than being stuck in a confined space with his greatest fear.

He kicked out the grill that covered the Jefferies tube in the corridor, very glad to see that it was dry. As soon as he had turned his back on the creeping water, it seemed to speed up, and the faster he crawled away from it, the more he could feel it lapping at his boots and soaking through the legs of his jumpsuit. He had looked back and couldn't for the life of him see where it was coming from, so he had crawled for all he was worth to get away from it.

He stood in the corridor, watching the water spilling out over the grate now on the floor and over the corridor. It didn't seem to be stopping and just kept spilling out around Malcolm's feet, rising to his ankles. He looked around for the comm panel to alert someone, or at least to find out what the hell was going on, but for some reason, he couldn't find the comm unit- it had just disappeared. He slapped the wall where it was supposed to be, but there was definitely nothing there. He slapped the wall again in sheer frustration, looking down at the water still coming out- if anything, faster than it had been before. It shot out in all directions, rising to the level to cover the Transporter unit and down the corridors. Malcolm couldn't believe that no one had raised the alarm- clearly the water unit in Engineering had a catastrophic leak. This was extremely bad news. This mission could last without several items, but water was not one of them.

Malcolm ran down the corridor, towards his quarters which were thankfully not that far away. If he couldn't find his own comm terminal, then he would swear he was going mad. In this, he at least managed to outrun the water.

He hit the door panel for access to his room with more force than was necessary, but he noted that his quarters were blessedly dry. As was his mouth- he realised that his fear was starting to get to him, and he stopped quickly to go to the bathroom for a drink.

He opened the door and stopped, stunned. The taps of the sink were on and running full pelt. He went to them , trying to turn them off, but no matter which way he turned them, it didn't make any difference. The sink filled up and spilled out on to the floor. The shower behind him suddenly came on then, the water coming through too fast for the plug hole to take all of the water and it filled up, the water pouring out to mingle with the water from the sink. Once again, Malcolm's feet were covered in a matter of seconds. His heart rate was too high, he could feel it, and his blood was pounding through his temples, pushing the adrenaline around his body, making him twitch.

He sloshed through the water, opening the door again to his quarters which now had water pouring in under the door to the corridor- evidently the water had caught up with him like it was chasing him personally.

He reached over to his desk for the comm panel. "Reed to Engineering!" he yelled out over the sound of the water- now no longer silent, but had adopted a roaring noise. There was a noise from the comm unit, but he could barely hear it over the noise in his quarters.

"Reed to Engineering!" he yelled out again.

The comm panel buzzed, and Trip's voice came through, also yelling, but Malcolm could distinctly hear a note of fear in his friend's voice. "Little busy here Mal!" he heard, before the link was unceremoniously cut off.

Malcolm would have been annoyed were he not feeling terrified himself. He left his quarters to go to Engineering himself, maybe he could at least give a helping hand, rather than being stuck with the water now swirling around his knees at a not-steady pace, and still rising. Was there really this much water on _Enterprise_??

Malcolm ran to the turbolift, running past several other people's quarters at the same time, water pouring out from underneath all of them, oxygen bubbles rising to the water's surface.

It would probably have been more sensible to use a Jefferies tube to get to Engineering rather than the turbolift, but Malcolm would rather give tours of the Armoury to hostile aliens than get trapped in the tubes with water pouring in all around him.

He spotted the turbolift ahead, and ran towards it, glad that the doors opened, but not so happy when the water pooled in as well around him as he fell in to the lift.

The doors closed shut behind him and the lift started to rise. Halfway between floors, the turbolift suddenly jolted heavily to a standstill, the lights going out, and the dull red emergency lights coming on, giving the water at his knees a ghoulish effect, like he was in his own personal hell.

He flicked all the buttons and tried the comm panel, but nothing worked- the power was completely out.

Malcolm reached out for the emergency access panel so that he could climb out, but as soon as he did, water started to pour in from between the doors, pushing its way past the seal. The emergency access panel then sprung its own leak, raining down on Malcolm from above and adding to the water at his knees, getting faster and faster, and higher...

It was suddenly at his waist, and Malcolm couldn't think of a single bloody thing to do. Nothing worked, there was no one to help him, and the doors were leaking something chronic, leaving him trapped inside without a hope of escape.

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	5. Entomophobia

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**Entomophobia**

**22:30 hours**

Malcolm's call through to Trip was forgotten as soon as the comm unit was quite. All Trip could think of right now was the fact that Rostov had just desperately crawled out of a Jefferies tube covered in cobwebs and spiders of various sizes and species running all over him. Trip froze for a full half a minute before he went to the same tube, crouched and looked inside.

There were cobwebs fluttering after Rostov's hasty escape. Trip felt his heart pounding.

He looked back at the room, looking for the rest of his staff who had all suddenly disappeared, and he suddenly realised that there were giant webs all around Engineering- in the corners, and under the walkways above, hanging down to brush past Trip's cheek. He flinched and ducked away, trembling when he saw a bird-eating spider the size of a large dinner plate move in his direction from above his head on the underside of the walkway above him. He actually let out a yelp and backed off to the centre of the room, not taking his eyes off the enormous creature before him.

His right hand brushed past the handrail going up to the main engine readouts, and he grabbed a hold of it for some solid comfort. He was distracted from the giant spider by a chirping sound at his feet. He looked down and saw billion of bugs- all manner of creepy crawlies- spreading out on the floor, climbing over each other and his feet, climbing his legs.

He jumped suddenly, swiping at his legs as he did and ran for the main door to Engineering, meaning to leave, but stopping when he saw giant sticky cobwebs blocking his way, the bugs getting caught up in the masses of webs which were expanding all over Engineering, spiders making swift kills of each insect, or just wrapping some of them up, still alive, to kill them later. Trip had a sudden vision of being trapped alive in a web and made to move for higher ground, but the same webs stopped him from moving to any escape out of the room. Instead, his only option was to climb on top of his beloved engines and try and stay out of the way.

His heart was pounding, his hands shaking uncontrollably, and his mind had frozen, unable to think. He let out a heart-rending moan as the bugs made easy work of getting on top of the engines with him and crawled all over him, drowning him in their multitude.

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	6. Taphophobia

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**Taphophobia**

**22:30 hours**

Travis Mayweather had gone to bed nice and early for once- it was a rare opportunity for him, being as he was one of the most sociable crewman on the _Enterprise_, but that didn't mean that he didn't like a little bit of down time every now and then.

As he changed, he looked around his room, wishing that he had a window in his quarters- his was one of the few officer quarters that didn't have a viewport, and he wished at that moment that he could see right up close without the Bridge viewscreen what the amoeba looked like. To be _that_ close to a non-sentient alien creature was just too exciting, even if it was stuck to the hull.

Travis hadn't had a massive amount to do since it had latched itself on to the hull being as the ship was at a stop around the 'Blob-World', as he'd dubbed it earlier in the Mess Hall when he'd had dinner with Hoshi. She'd laughed and shook her head when he called it that, and it made him smile just thinking of the memory again.

He went to the bathroom and washed before coming back into his bedroom, sliding into bed and double checking the alarm for the morning. He clicked off the light, and settled into bed, wishing that there was the sound of the ship at warp to help him sleep, but settling with the general sounds of the air conditioning system and the soft, soothing noises of the ship to help him drift off to sleep.

---*---

He woke with a start, jolting upright, instantly alert.

There was nothing wrong in his quarters though, and he realised he'd had a nightmare- an old one that he had used to have as a child.

Growing up on a ship had its downside, and when he was very young, he'd once been told a ghost story about someone getting buried alive. It was before he'd ever stepped foot on a planet, and he'd had so many nightmares afterwards and he'd been afraid of being buried alive ever since just because of that ghost story he'd been told before he could read. It seemed silly now, but old fears die hard, his Mama used to say.

He looked at the chronometer which was showing that he'd been asleep for less than an hour- he must have dropped off to sleep almost instantly.

"Boy, I should get an early night more often," he said to himself, wiping his hand across his face and noticing that a fine sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead.

He threw back his bed covers and swung his legs out of bed going to the bathroom so that he could get a nice cool glass of water. He padded his way over in his bare feet, hissing slightly that the air con unit had made the bathroom floor cold. He drank his fill of water, and then made his way back into bed, snuggling once again into the covers, no longer thinking about that old nightmare of his.

He turned over and brought the covers up over his head, but then changed his mind and made to move the covers down again, but he suddenly discovered that he couldn't find the edges of the bedclothes anymore. He reached out further, trying to sit up in bed, but the covers were pushing down on him, suffocating him, closing in on him.

"This is nuts!" He thought to himself, trying even harder to find the edge of the covers, to get off the bed, anything, but it was like he wasn't in his own bed anymore, but somewhere completely different where the geography wasn't the same.

The only thing being that he hadn't moved from his quarters, there had been no transporter, nothing- he was still in his bed, but now he was stuck, unable to get out, and now he was beginning to have problems breathing. His heart rate sky-rocketed when he realised he could only take short gulping breaths, and not his regular lungfuls, and he began to feel the old panic that his nightmare used to bring to him- the recurring one where he'd been buried alive....

The more he struggled against the bedclothes, the more he began to realise that the texture had changed. The material had become crumbly and damp, falling through his fingers as he tried desperately to push up, to get some space between him and the bedclothes. Some of the crumbliness fell into his open mouth which was still gulping desperately for air, and he could taste a soft, loamy soil.

He yelled out for someone- anyone- to help him, but his nostrils and ears were full of dirt clods and the more he yelled, the more his mouth filled with soil and he choked on it, unable to make anymore noise.

What had been a mattress beneath him gave way as it too became soil, and the weight of Travis' body sank down into it, with him still struggling to breathe.

True to his old nightmare, roots appeared out of nowhere, twining around him- his wrists, his legs, his chest, pulling him down into the rich fertile earth, burying him entirely, with him still trying to spit out the soil to breathe...

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	7. Pyrophobia

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**Pyrophobia**

**22:30 hours**

Phlox had been busy with T'Pol all afternoon ever since the amoeba had discovered that _Enterprise_ was a more interesting place to be than it's own gas giant. It had otherwise been quite a slow day for Elizabeth Cutler as she turned in for the night. What she _had_ noticed though that the crew had been increasingly jumpy since the creature had arrived earlier that afternoon, although she had at the time put that down to the crew being more alert to outside threats ever since the Xindi attacks, even if that had been some time ago now. That wasn't something you could just put aside and get over just like that. _Unless you were Vulcan, perhaps_, she thought to herself.

She had surprised herself though when she herself had begun to feel ever so slightly paranoid around dinner-time, and her jumpiness had increased, even as she noticed it in the others around her. It was more than unsettling: it was downright unlike her, so she had decided not to stay around the Mess Hall being sociable, but instead have a nice warm shower and go to bed.

As she stood in her bathroom drying off, she realised that her usually fail-safe shower method of relaxing hadn't entirely worked- her muscles weren't tense anymore, and there were no physical aches and pains, but she just couldn't shake the wound-up feeling that something bad was about to happen.

It was a horrible feeling, but short of going to bed and sleeping the feeling off, there wasn't much else she could do about it. She changed into her pyjamas, brushed her hair, did her teeth, and activated the door to her bedroom.

Her room was on fire.

She couldn't believe it. It was silent, and nothing smelled of smoke or flames, and more than scared, she was utterly confused.

She closed the bathroom door, and then opened it again. Just to make sure she wasn't going mad.

It was a proper fire **that** time- the smoke billowed into the the bathroom above her head, causing her to choke. She covered her nose and mouth with the sleeve of her pyjamas and ducked, squinting into the room. This time, the flames properly burned through her quarters.

Not only that, but the worst of the blaze was right by her bedroom door out to the corridor, completely blocking her only exit out of the room.

That was when the heat suddenly drove her backwards, suddenly flaring up, making her skin pucker.

She stumbled back into the bathroom, slapping the panel so the door would shut behind her, and she slipped, landing clumsily and painfully on the floor, choking, drawing in raggedy breaths, trying to make the hideous dry sandpaper feeling in her throat abate.

As the worst of the choking subsided, she looked up at the comm panel on the wall. Her heart was trying to blast through her chest as she scrambled her way to her knees and feet to find someone- anyone- who could help her.

She activated the panel, desperately calling for help- pleading to anyone to hear her, but all Liz could hear was the sound of someone else screaming down the comm panel for help, and no helpful voice, no saviour told her that they would come and help her- not even help for the other person begging for rescue either.

For all Liz knew, everyone on board was caught in the fire. She prayed that wasn't so. For all their sakes.

Switching frequencies, she went to the secondary general ship-wide emergency channel, but no one answered that call- all was quiet there. It would have been spooky if she hadn't been scared rigid about her own problem. Plus by now, she could hear the sound of the roaring furnace through the door. She glanced back at the door, wondering if there was any possibly way she could dampen herself down in the shower and then run for the main door to the corridor.

She went back to the door, opening it again, but the fire was now most definitely impossible for her to cross- it had moved right in the way of the bathroom doorway, and there wasn't a single thing she could do about it now. She couldn't even reach a blanket or _something_ that she could cover herself or smother the flames with. It seemed honestly hopeless.

So instead, Liz did the only thing she could think of. She closed the bathroom door again, another bout of coughs and chokes racking her body, destroying her throat and lungs, momentarily stopping her again. She stumbled forward to the sink and turned on the taps, full blast. She went to the shower and turned that on all the way, then she slid down the wall, the needles of water from above coursing down all over her, plastering her hair to her face. She welcomed the cool water to her tender skin, made so by the sudden heat of the fire, she realised.

The utter hopelessness of the situation made her sob suddenly, and she wrapped her arms around her knees, drawing them to her chin, and resting her head on top as she watched the smoke slowly make its way around the door frame.

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	8. Addictaphobia

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**Addictaphobia**

**23:00 hours**

If T'Pol were to admit it to herself, she would say that the Science Lounge was her preferred room in the _Enterprise_, after her quarters. She could be found there doing scientific research away from the Bridge when peace and quiet was not so easy to find in the latter room. Plus, it had the added bonus of having many more scientific functions than her station on the Bridge.

At that moment, T'Pol was using these added functions to monitor the amoeba attached to the hull of the ship. She and the Doctor had discovered that it was a very basic life form, and it had the basics of a species evolving in it- simple DNA, a small amount of electricity, much like humans and Vulcans, protein strands, and amino acids. She noted with interest that the electrical fields in the creature were increasing, and she wondered what it was feeding off, as there were no indications of power loss on the _Enterprise_, nor was there any indication of physical damage.

She stopped for a moment as she noticed that her hands were shaking ever so slightly. She ignored the sensation and returned to her findings.

The PADD in her hand began shaking and she had trouble focusing on the data when the shivers in her hands became more noticeable.

She then stopped her research completely as she felt herself break out in a feverish sweat as well, and her entire body began shaking so much that she collapsed on the floor.

She discovered that she was unable to move in any way because she was shaking so much, like having a fit, but she was fully conscious, although beginning to lose control. She let out a helpless pained and strangled scream, the like of which she hadn't heard herself make since she had first come across Trellium-D on the ship where her fellow Vulcans had so completely lost control.

The thought of Trellium-D now focused her mind so intently that she knew that to finish her work, she **had** to find some immediately. She made to get up, but the shaking stopped her short, especially as she started to convulse, and it was all she could do to curl up into a ball and rock to try and comfort herself, whimpering like a child.

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	9. Necrophobia

Disclaimer... we all know it.

Necrophobia

**23:00 hours**

Jon had been about to go to sleep, as the creature seemed to pose no threat to the crew or the ship, and he desperately needed some shut-eye, but by now, there had been an alarming number of communications waking him up through his comm panel which had chased from him any drowsiness he might have had.

Whilst he'd been in the bathroom getting ready for bed, he thought he'd heard Phlox shouting the names of various crewmembers, asking if anyone was there. As Jon went to the comm panel to ask the Doctor if he was alright, he'd not heard another thing from Phlox. He'd checked with the computer terminal in his room where the Doctor was, and it showed him quite clearly in the Mess Hall, a place where the Doctor was often found, so Jon put it down to his imagination. He was tired after all, so he went back to the bathroom to shower.

As he came out of the shower, he heard a panicked voice through the comm unit desperately yelling for anyone to help- Liz Cutler, he realised. He answered her call, but she never answered his query, and as if she hadn't heard him, she just carried on yelling. He could make out the sound of running water just about over her comm unit, but she stopped calling out for help and the comm went dead.

He didn't even bother to dry off from his shower- he just threw on the clothes he had nearest which turned out to be his gym clothes, and ran out of his room towards Cutler's quarters. As he ran through the corridors towards the turbolift, he heard the comm units as he passed them in the hallways activate, and each time, he heard the desperate cries of his crew begging for help from anyone who was there- to save them from the most incredible things, and Jon could only begin to imagine how 'billions of bugs', or 'the world's largest spiders', or 'snakes' had got on to his ship. But the more he heard the terrified screaming of his crew- it seemed that behind every door or comm unit he passed, there was someone else begging for his help- the more terrified he became. His crew were dying, so it sounded like, and he couldn't find anyone to help. He got to the turbolift, and as it opened, he saw the body of Crewman Hughes on the floor, a terrified look upon his face, but clearly very dead. Jon's heart seemed to stop in his chest, and he felt a lump rise in his throat, his eyes feeling hot and stinging. He stooped to Hughes, feeling for a pulse and finding none. It sickened him, but he could still hear the sounds of his crew all around him, so he got into the turbolift to help those who were still alive. He raced out as the doors opened and ran down the corridors towards Cutler's quarters and used his Captain's override to open the door. He couldn't see her inside, so he went to the bathroom where he could still hear the sounds of the shower.

All he could see was that her eyes were open, and her mouth was open in what looked like a scream, but as he desperately felt for a pulse with the shower beating down upon them, he could see that she was non-responsive.

He sat back in the shower and pounded the wall, letting out a shout of frustration and pain. He got up then and closed her eyes, and then left her quarters, determined to find everyone who had called out for him. He was their Captain, and he had already lost so many during the war with the Xindi that he had resolved never to lose another crew member, and already he had come across two dead in his flight from his quarters.

He left Liz's quarters and though he dreaded going back into the same turbolift, he did, going up to the Bridge to check the computer where his crew were.

The turbolift doors opened to the Bridge, and Jon hadn't been prepared for what he saw before him. His senior staff were all at their terminals, bodies draped in various positions, and all dead, although he still had to go check every single one.

They seemed to have all died quite suddenly, with no signs of struggle or trauma. T'Pol was slumped forwards, head tilted towards Hoshi who had also slumped forwards, her hands resting lightly on the controls in front of her. Travis was leaning back in his seat, head dropped back and mouth open. Malcolm had fallen from his chair, and was lying on the floor for all the world looking like he was asleep, and Trip and two crewmen were in the Situation Room at the back of the Bridge. Jon knelt by Trip, feeling his heart break over and over again, but none more so than at the death of his friend for so many years. He hung his head and cried unashamedly.

The comm units were quiet now, and he crept to the computer terminal at Malcolm's seat, taking care not to disturb him lying there, so he could check the status of the rest of the crew. Not a soul aboard- even Porthos didn't register anymore- just him, Jonathan Archer. It wasn't fair- the Captain shouldn't ever be the one to survive when everyone else was dead. He looked down at Malcolm and wondered if he would have disagreed with that sentiment.

His eye caught the clock and it occurred to him that it was very odd that the senior staff would be on the Bridge at that hour without him knowing about it. This was Beta-shift, so the senior staff should all be in their quarters at this time of night, or rather, not on shift.

At that moment though, he barely cared. This was his worst fear- the death of his crew. They were all of his cares, this family which had been created and had bonded so well together. He felt that he needed to send a message to Starfleet, though if he was going to do that, he needed to apprise them of the entire situation, so while at Malcolm's terminal, he checked on the amoeba attached to the hull. He frowned. He wasn't sure, but he thought that the creature looked bigger than it had beforehand. He got up and went to T'Pol's station where there would be a more detailed analysis, and as he did, the _Enterprise_ tilted to port. Without disturbing T'Pol, he went to the readouts behind her- the amoeba was disconnecting itself from _Enterprise_ and leaving. As he watched it on the scanners, he saw it leave, wondering to himself if it was that which had killed his crew and he felt a hatred build up inside him directed at it. He wanted to kill it there and then, to destroy it for what it had done to his them all. He rushed back to Malcolm's station to target it for destruction when it simply disappeared, seemingly pulled at warp speed into the gravity well of the sun which they had been orbiting when it had appeared coming at them earlier that same day.

His frustration and anger welled up in him so much so that he suddenly felt dizzy. He grabbed his head, feeling nauseous, but before he could do anything, he swayed, catching his head on Malcolm's chair and blacked out completely.

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	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer... we all know it.

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Jon woke up to the sounds and smell of Sickbay, and of Trip and Phlox peering over him.

"He's waking up now, Commander," he heard the Doctor say.

His eyes flickered open, feeling slightly woozy still. He managed to focus them on Trip. Then it registered that he'd just seen Trip dead on the Bridge. "Am I dead?" he asked.

Trip's eyes widened a little, but he smiled a relieved smile. "Nope Cap'n, 'fraid not. Though you did hit your head. You're the last one to come around."

Jon tried to sit up, but was pushed back down by both Trip and Phlox. "What?" he asked, getting increasingly more confused.

"Don't move Captain," Phlox admonished patiently.

"Turns out T'Pol and the Doc worked out what the blob wanted from us." Trip told him once Jon had laid back down. "It wanted our emotions, in particular, fear."

"What?" Jon said again, sounding a bit thick, even to his own ears.

Phlox came to his rescue though. "Yes Captain. It seems that the creature thrives on electrical impulses, the majority of which it would absorb from the sun which it and its species covers. This one however had become – dislodged- for lack of a better phrase, and to survive it latched on to the closest thing which it could get these electrical impulses from- _Enterprise_. Now these impulses weren't anything to do with the sort of electricity the ship would give off, but instead, what our brains give off- it sensed a bountiful food source in us, and it affected us when it attached itself to our hull. It gave off certain waves which all of our brains could perceive which prompted fear in us, as that was the specific wave of electrical impulse it needed."

Jon struggled to take it all in. "So what you're saying Doc, is that we all hallucinated, seeing things that weren't actually there so it could take the electrical impulses our brains created from that fear and it digested it like food?"

Phlox nodded. "Essentially, yes Captain."

"And it affected all of us," Trip said, making Jon look at him. "We've got relieved crewmen all over the ship comparing each other's phobias."

Jon made to sit up again, "And everyone's alright? Everyone's alive?" he asked, desperate to know.

Phlox shrugged, "yes Captain. Everyone has just had a bit of a scare, that's all."

"I think that was more than just a 'bit' of a scare Doc," Jon said, but he lay back again, relieved.

Trip explained in a bit more detail for Jon's sake, seeing his friend still not completely convinced. "You see, everyone really did just have a mass hallucination- Malcolm was in the turbolift convinced that he was about to drown, Hoshi was stuck in the EM Chamber, Liz thought her room was on fire. And everyone lost consciousness when the creature had had its fill. You were the only person on the Bridge because everyone had been so terrified of their individual hallucinations." Trip laughed, "You should have heard Mal swear a blue streak when he'd heard that the Bridge had been deserted! Although he didn't blame anyone, he just was - unhappy- about the whole thing!"

Phlox smiled. "Now then Captain, you must rest. You were the only person on board in the end to receive an injury when you hit your head, and you must sleep for a couple of hours, it will do you the world of good. Then I think some Rest and Relaxation for the entire ship is in order."

Trip nodded enthusiastically. "I couldn't agree more Doc," he said as he made to leave. "Night Cap'n," he said to Jon.

Jon smiled back at his friend, managing to banish the fear he had had that his friend had seemed to definitely dead to him beforehand. He had been so convinced that he'd seen his crew dead, and yet here was Trip joking about Malcolm as usual. It was more comforting than anything else he could have said at that point. So normal. He smiled at his friend. "Night Trip."

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The next morning, Jon had been released from Sickbay, and the _Enterprise_ had made a hasty trail away from the blue sun with the evolving amoeba.

It was a Tuesday night, so it was movie night, and he and Trip were walking towards the Mess Hall for dinner before the film began.

"So what movie are you showing today Trip?" Jon asked as they walked.

Trip looked at him and grinned, "well after recent events, I thought 'The Blob' might be a good call!"

Jon rolled his eyes. Trip really was incorrigible, but it was good to see that even after all these years and after everything that had happened to the crew of the _Enterprise_, they could still all joke. He had woken up that morning seeing the faces of the dead crewmen, and it had taken him a second or two to remember that everyone was in fact okay, and no one was dead, but his breathing had still elevated enough to make Phlox scan him again before he'd left Sickbay and assure him of a friendly ear, should he need to 'talk about his experiences'.

Trip had told him about **his** experience in Engineering with all the bugs and spiders. Apparently Rostov hadn't even been in the room, let alone been covered in bugs and cobwebs. Trip had shuddered several times as he'd told Jon, but he'd managed to laugh at the end of it.

They went into the Mess Hall and through it to get to the Captain's Mess. Jon saw Crewman Hughes sharing a joke with Ensign Morris on one of the tables near the cantine, and Jon shook his head in wonder- there was certainly a lot of life here, for which he was eternally glad and grateful. The thought that these wonderful people might have been dead had shaken him to his very core.

As they went into the Captain's Mess, T'Pol was already there waiting for them, sitting as Trip and Jon sat at the table.

"Well, that was one for the books," Trip said to the both of them. "Wonder what Starfleet'll make of _that_. I've never seen so many bugs in one place, which I'm glad 'bout, and I never wanna see anything like it again."

Jon took his napkin and placed it in his lap as Crewman Brown brought in their meals.

T'Pol also placed her napkin delicately upon her lap. "It has been fascinating to hear the fears of the crew," she admitted to them. "Some of them are quiet irrational." She picked up a spoon to eat her lentil soup.

Trip grinned at her as he leaned over to grab a hunk of bread from the middle of the table. "Fascinating, huh? Betcha didn't feel a thing." The easy grin he gave her showed that there was no malice in his words as there might have been when _Enterprise_ left on its first mission all those years ago.

T'Pol stopped eating, spoon hovering mid-air as she contemplated his words. "Actually, I did feel the effects of the creature." She paused, wondering how much to admit to these two men. Her family, she admitted to herself. "I felt the fear of losing control." She began eating again.

Trip blinked, but realising how much of an admission that was on her part, didn't say anything more about it. "Well, everyone now knows that I'm scared o' bugs, but what 'bout you Cap'n? Did you see anythin'?"

Jon flinched, remembering yet again. "The entire crew called out to me for help, and I couldn't help a single one of them, so I found everyone dead. It was an experience I hope never to have to live through."

T'Pol inclined her head towards him. "That is not an irrational fear."

Trip grinned at the two of them, looking from T'Pol to Jon. "You know Cap'n, I think she's just said you aren't an irrational human being for once."

T'Pol's cool, dry expression went to Trip, eyebrow raising. "I did not say that Commander. I merely said it was understandable."

"Yeah, sure," was all Trip said, the three of them sharing the joke, and the relief that there was nothing out of the ordinary after all.


End file.
